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Unlock The Music On Your Audio CDs
Direct Tutorial Links - Playlist Manager - CD Ripper - Playlist Burner
New 3.1 Now Rips IN TRACK ORDER With Names Of Tracks
Drew's CD Ripping Tutorial
Or, Why You Need To Rip Rather Than Copy Music From Your CDs
The new DAK CD ripper 3.1 is a very powerful but easy to use program that lets you take the music from your CDs directly to your computer so you are not locked out of your music and so you can:

Create compilation CDs of your favorite tracks
Copy tracks to your hard drive for editing and or mixing
Copy your favorite CD tracks to MP3s for use in iPods and other MP3 players

Why do you need to Rip CDs?

The music on CDs is in files like Wave Files (which are the standard uncompressed audio files), but they are called CDA (Compact Disc Audio). So you can't just drag them to your computer to edit them or copy them to MP3 files.

DAK's new ripper allows you to copy any or all the tracks on any CD and save them as Wave files which you can edit, rearrange or do anything you want with. Or you can save the tracks as MP3 files ready to drop into your iPod or any MP3 portable player.

It's super easy to use. And it has some very nice extra features so that you can copy your music and have it just the way you want it.

You can select any tracks you want by just checking or unchecking the individual tracks in the display. The DAK ripper will save the tracks using the track number that's on the CD so you'll know which track is which. And now with 3.1 you will actually get the Track Name for most CDs and Preserve The Order Of The Tracks too.

Plus, you'll add a suffix by simply typing it in the box so that each track can carry the name of the artist or album. So when you're finished, each track will look like this:

AlbumName_TrackNo.wav or MP3.
AlbumName_TrackName.wave or MP3.
AlbumName_TrackNUMBERTrackName.wave or MP3.

It's a revolution in Track Ripping and it's now included in new DAK CD Ripper 3.1.

And finally you can AUTOMATICALLY put all the tracks in any folder on your computer that you choose.

So, the tracks will be called what you want them to be called, they can be numbered or named and they'll be put into the folder of your choice. Pretty neat. Now let me show you how easy and automated this whole process is.

Quick Index
Of Major Functions
The Interface
Preserve track Order
Ripping Tracks By Names
Variable bitrate
Preview Music
Rename Tracks
FreeDB Lookup Your Tracks

OK, let's get started. . .

First, a quick word about Installation. There's really nothing special to do to install the DAK Playlist Manager and CD Ripper. Download the DAK_Playlist_Ripper and the ebook and you're all set.

Look at the picture above. The Icon on the LEFT is the installation Icon. It's silver and has the arrows from left down to right. It doesn't run the program, it installs it. So, just double click it and follow the prompts. When it's finished it will place the Icon on the right with the cute notes and the yellow comet on your desktop. That's the Icon you double click to use the program.

You can either delete the Silver Installation Icon now, or burn it to a CD if you want to keep a copy of the installation program. It's up to you. But you don't need to leave it on your desktop.


Just Do This First.
DAK's new CD Ripper 3.1 adds the ability to actually identify and name each song/track on your CDs. This works in about 80-90% of most CDs.

To activate this feature, please do the following.

Arrow 1. Click the FreeDB Options Key

Arrow 2. Put your own email address in this box. (Don't worry, your name won't be used, it's just needed to access the database.)

Arrow 3. This is the URL that the ripper will access to get you your track names.

Arrow 4. You can leave this as FreeDB unless you are dealing with foreign CDs.

Arrow 5. Click OK

That's it. Now we can start ripping AND NAMING AND NUMBERING your tracks. And, I'll tell you a little more about this screen below.


OK Let's Get The Basics.
Here's your main CD Ripper Interface. It's so easy to use, this is just about all you need to see and do. When you put a CD in your drive, the DAK CD Ripper automatically displays all the tracks as I've shown above without you doing anything.

Arrow 1. Where do you want to keep the tracks after you rip them? Just open this box by clicking on the . . . button to the right and navigate to and select the folder you want the tracks to go to. Don't type in the box. Navigate to where you want the files stored.

Arrow 2. At the beginning of each of your tracks you can add a suffix. So if the album's name is Harmony, just type that here. If it's The 5th Symphony, type that here. That's all there is to it. As you'll see below , the name will be part of each track from now on. YOU DON'T HAVE TO ADD A SUFFIX, I just like to so I can better keep track of my ripped CDs.

Arrow 3. Preserve Track Order. This is the newest and most important addition. See below for a complete description. But in short when you rip tracks on just about any other ripper, when you look in the folder or in your MP3 player, the tracks will be arranged in alphabetical order, not the order that they were originally supposed to be in on the CD. DAK's all new CD Ripper eliminates this problem. It's an awesome breakthrough.

For Example if you rip Phantom Of The Opera, you wouldn't get to hear the overture till track 7. It would be all wrong. Now with DAK's Preserve Track Order, your music will be stored correctly for the first time.

Arrow 4. Do you want to rip to Wave? Click this button. Wave is what you use for normal audio CDs and for all editing. It's uncompressed and essentially what's already on the CD. A CDA file is really the same as a Wav in size.

Arrow 5. Want MP3 files for your iPod or MP3 portable or just to save space on your computer? They are 1/10th the size of Wave Files. And all you do is check this radio button to get them.

Arrow 6. By default, every track on the disc will be checked. If there are any that you don't want to rip, just uncheck them and only the remaining checked tracks will be ripped. Or use these new check boxs to check or uncheck them all. This is very useful if you want only 1 or two tracks, deselect them all and then just check the few you want. If you want most tracks, then select them all and then uncheck the ones you don't want. This is a big time saving new feature.

That's really most of what you need to know, but let's go on.


This is big. This is unique. This is My big invention. Look up at the tracks on your left. You'll see Phantom of the Opera has been ripped to a folder. BUT IT'S ALL WRONG. The Windows operating system will by default alphabetize all your ripped tracks.

So in this example, you won't get to hear the Overture till the 7th track that you hear. This is terrible. I want to hear the tracks in the correct order.

THIS IS AN UNFIXABLE PROBLEM FOR MP3 PORTABLE FLASH MEMORY PLAYERS. TOO. TILL NOW!

Now just check the box, "PRESERVE Ripped ORDER" when you rip and DAK's new CD Ripper permanently corrects the problem.

Look at the right hand column and you'll see the Phantom with one massive difference. It's in the correct order. If you look carefully we've inserted a number in front of the track name. So, let windows run it's alpha/numeric sort. We'll still come up in the right order, the first time, every time.

This is a major improvement for:
1. The music you keep on your computer
2. The Music you burn to CDs
3. The Tracks you load in your MP3 Players.

This is the complete and final solution for this native Windows Problem.

Now You Can Rip With the Actual Song/Track Names Too.
Here's your main CD Ripper Interface again. In the last picture we explored how to set up the folders and layout for ripping.

Here we are going to see all the information that we can get to automatically name our tracks.

NOTE: Most of the information that you see above will be filled in for you, so don't worry, there's really not much for you to do. I'm just explaining what everything is.

Arrow 1. After the CD is loaded with the track numbers as you saw in the previous picture, all you do is click the Load CD Album Info box and the DAK CD Ripper will go to the online database and check to see if it knows the information for the Disc. As I've said, it seems to know 80-90% of all the CDs I loaded.

Arrow 2. ISRC is an information source that lists all the tracks on the CD. It's actually a file on the CD itself. You would think that all CDs would have it, but only about 20% of the newer CDs have this, so it's an option that you can try.

Arrow 3. The Freedb Database uses several methods to determine which CD you are trying to identify. Sometimes CDs are released in different languages. Some are released with different titles. And some CDs seem alike to the database. So sometimes you'll have your choice of 2 or 3 CDs to grab your titles. Just click here if the songs/tracks aren't the ones on your disc and they most likely will be the next ones.

Arrow 4. Here the database supplies the Title of the Album/CD.

Arrow 5. Here the database supplies the Artist.

Arrow 6. Music is separated into types. Here the type is listed. This can be subjective.

Arrow 7. Often the year of the CD is listed in the database. For this CD it isn't.

Arrow 8. Here's the really fun part. Here are the actual song/track names, the duration of the track. The names are the really important part and they are saved as file names when you rip the tracks.

Arrow 9. The Action Box. This is great. In this box you'll see a log of every action that the DAK CD Ripper has performed in this session. You'll see the rip speed, the access time, everything. It's really interesting.

So as you can see the new Song/Track Naming DAK CD ripper provides all the information you'll need to enjoy your CDs after you rip them to Wave and MP3 files. Now the file name will be the original song/track name from the CD. It's a revolution in Ripping from CDs.


Easy Destination Setup.


 
I've repeated this screen because if you don't choose a folder to put your ripped tracks into, you'll get an error message. So. . .

Arrow 1. Click the Button with the . . . and navigate to the folder you want to rip to. You can't type the folder name, just navigate there.

Arrow 2. This is optional. If you want every track to have the album name or some abbreviation, put it in here. And, every track will carry this prefix like Prefix_TrackName

Arrows 3/4. Don't forget to choose Wave for editing or making CD compilations or MP3 for making files to put in your iPod or other MP3 player.


The Choose Folder Dialog Box
When you click the Button with the . . . in the last picture above, it opens the Windows Browser Window. Here as you can see, I've chosen my folder to put the tracks in.

Arrow 1. I've chosen Harmony. Then

Arrow 2. I just click OK, and it's set.


How Many CD ROM Drives Do You Have?
If you have more than 1 CD ROM drive on your computer, just open this box and choose the drive that has your audio CD in it. The DAK CD Ripper will automatically find and display all the tracks in your drive. You don't have to do anything. Hint. If one of your CD ROM drives doesn't work with the Ripper, try the other.


 
Choose Your Bitrate (Optional)
For ripping MP3 files, some people like to choose a bitrate other than the industry standard 128 kbit/sec. Why? Well MP3 files are 1/10th the size of the standard Wave files that are used in the industry.

You see there is no reason in the world to use MP3 rather than Wav other than to save space (OK you can carry title info too). But really, Wavs do sound better although most people really can't hear the difference.

Anyway what you can do is increase or decrease the bitrate. Why? Well some people think by going to 192 or higher the sound is better. But the files are bigger too. So anyway, you can go all the way up to 320 kbit/sec if you want. But then you are just about as big as a Wav file.

BUT, if you really do need to save space and if you are dealing with say spoken word, then by all means, cut the bit rate to 64 Kbit or even all the way down to 8 kbit/sec. The sound won't be very good, but you can fit hundreds of hours of sound into a very small number of megabytes by comparison. It's up to you. But you might as well do some testing to see what you think You can't hurt anything. Just remember to switch back to 128 when you're finished.

Arrow 1. Slide the slider to the right for better sound which take up more space or to the left for less good sound that takes less space.

Arrows 2/3. This is just showing you the max settings.

Arrow 4. You can increase Incoder Quality. But this won't have as much effect with most computers today as arrow 1.


Variable Bitrate (Optional)
OK, so you've got more and less bitrates. Now there's one more option. You can use variable bitrate. What this does is increases the bitrate for musical passages that need it and decreases it for talking parts and less intensive passages. Again, it's all about saving space.
Arrow 1. Leave default as your coding method.
Arrow 2. By setting the current bitrate higher at 192, you'll get perhaps better sound when needed without using all the space when not needed.

Most people do not use these settings.

Preview Your Music.
But what if you don't remember what a song sounds like? Sure you know the name, you've got the CD and probably the jacket. And of course you'll see the track names like these right in front of you. But does that name remind you of the melody?

Well no problem If you're not sure, just:
Arrow 1. Click > which launches the built in player.

Arrow 2. Click Play or Stop on the player.

Arrow 3. You can drag the little slider along if you want to hear a different part of the track without waiting.

Arrow 4. You can close the player by clicking the OK button or just click the X in the upper right hand corner.

You can do it all with no hassles. It's really easy to use.


Rename Any Track With A Single Click
This is new in 3.1. Now you can rename any track so that when it's ripped it will have the name you want. You can use the rename feature when you are ripping just by track number or if you want to shorten, or lengthen any name. It's all up to you. Now you're not locked out of your music, or naming the tracks any more.

Arrow 1. Just click on the name itself.

Arrow 2. Type in a new name and click somewhere else and you're done. It's really easy to name, rename or change any track name from now on.


The Wav or MP3 Buttons
The only real decision you have to make is Wave Or MP3, or both. You can rip one way for your CDs and another for your MP3 player. It's easy and fast. And you're just a click away. Don't be locked out of the music on your CDs any longer.


OK, let's Rip to Track Numbers.
Here's what you see as the ripping is actually going on. There's nothing you have to do, but you are informed.

Arrow 1. You see the percent of each track as it's ripped.

Arrow 2. Here's a track that's being ripped right now.

Arrow 3. Here's overal progress on the CD itself. Plus just above is the Action Window showing that I'm ripping Wave at 44,100kHz, Stereo 128 Kbps. You'll see everything that's going on in the Action window.

Wasn't that easy?


OK, let's Rip to Track/Song NAMES.
Here's what you see as the ripping is actually going on when the NAMES are being added. There's nothing you have to do, but you are informed. And these names will be part of the final file name, so you'll always know what you've got.

Arrow 1. You see the percent of each track as it's ripped.

Arrow 2. Here's a track that's being ripped right now.

Arrow 3. Here's the percent of all the tracks you've selected that's already been ripped.

Arrow 4. Here's the information about what the Ripper is doing. This track is being ripped at 29.7x and it took :07 seconds. Wow. It's very fast.

Wasn't that easy?


Here Are Your Ripped Tracks Using TRACK NUMBERs.
And here's the finished result. All 19 tracks are ripped to your hard drive. You choose Wave or MP3 (in this case MP3) and as you can see each track carries the Album name and track number. Of course, using the Album name is optional.

Remember:

Arrow 1 Choose MP3 or Wav

Arrow 2 the Prefix name is optional.

Arrow 3 The Track Number will always be generated for you.

It's all really easy. And I just wanted to remind you that you can rip either or both Wave or MP3 files with just the click of your mouse.


Here Are Your Ripped Tracks Using TRACK NAMES.
AND PRESERVE TRACK ORDER!!!!!
And here's the finished result with actual Track NAMES. All 19 tracks are ripped to your hard drive. This time we chose WAV and as you can see each track carries the Windows defying TRACK NUMBER and ACTUAL TRACK NAME.

Arrow 1. Choose Wav or MP3

Arrow 2 Shows you DAK's 'Preserve Track Order' which puts the unobtrusive number in front of the track name to fool Windows and your MP3 players into Playing your tracks in the exact order you want them when you rip them. This is an astounding improvement.

Arrow 3 This is the Actual Track Name.

It's all really easy. And I just wanted to remind you that you can rip either or both Wave or MP3 files with just the click of your mouse. And This example with BOTH Preserve Track Order and Track Name shows you the power.


Here Are Your Tracks 1) Using Album Name & 2)TRACK NAME.
PLUS 3) PRESERVE TRACK ORDER!!!!!
And here's the finished result with ALL THREE ENHANCEMENTS. 1) Album Name, 2) Preserve Track order and actual 3) Track NAMES. All 19 tracks are ripped to your hard drive. This time we chose Wav and as you can see each track carries the Album name, The DAK TRACK NUMBER and ACTUAL TRACK NAME.

Arrow 1 Choose MP3 or Wav

Arrow 2 (The Album name) is Optional but I selected it when we ripped

Arrow 3 Here the Preserve Track Order number AND LOOK AT THIS. This number is AFTER the Prefix album name. So, all tracks from this album will be sorted first in your computer, when you burn or when you load the tracks into an MP3 player. THEN and only then the track number will keep them in perfect track order. So you get first all the tracks from an album in one place and then all the tracks in the correct order too.

Arrow 4 Here is the actual track name.

It's all really just this easy. And I just wanted to remind you that you can rip either or both MP3 or Wav files with just the click of your mouse. And they will play for you in the perfect order from now on.



CD ROM Control Too.
Here's the CD Options menu. You can Refresh the CD if you change it. You can eject the tray without leaning over to the drive and you can even lock the drive so the CD won't come out. You're in complete control. Just click:

Arrow 1 the Icon to open the menu and Click

Arrow 2 to choose what you want to do.


The FreeDB Database Info In Detail

At the beginning of this tutorial we explored how to enter your own email address at the Arrow 2 position. This is very important and you do need to do this before you start using the. So if you haven't done it yet, do it now.

Arrow 1. Click the Icon and Select FreeDB options.

Arrow 2. Enter your email address here, NOW!!!

Arrow 3, is just for your info. This is a list of all the FreeDB databases around the world that your ripper can access.

Arrow 4 gives you the choice of using the U.S. Main database or all the databases listed in 3 above. It comes with only the main database selected by default and for most CDs, that's all you'll want or need. If you have foreign CDs, you might try changing this to all. It might be a bit slower, but maybe it will find one for you.

Arrow 5. When you're finished be sure to click OK, or your changes won't be preserved.

That's it. Now you can name most tracks on most CDs with a single click. It's a truly amazing capability that I'm sure you'll love having as much as I do. And if you haven't figured out how excited I am about the new automatic track naming and Preserving Track order, well I am more than excited. I just love these new features.


Scratched CDs? Tracks You can't Play?
Got a damaged CD? We'll here's where you can try to save your music. Just click one of the choices, I like Paranoid Mode and scratched CDs that will no longer play can often be brought back to life. Just save all the tracks you can and then burn yourself a new CD using your rescued tracks. It's all Included in the DAK CD Ripper. Just click on the Options menu to get these powers.

Don't Be Locked Out Of Your Music Any More!!
OK that's it. Just take your newly liberated tracks WITH TRACK NAMES & WINDOWS DEFYING TRACK ORDER and enjoy your music, on your computer, in the compilations of tracks you've made from multiple CDs and in your MP3 Players now in perfect track order. Now you really can enjoy CDs with only the tracks you love. Now you can edit, mix and control your music like never before. Now you can grab MP3 tracks from any of your CDs quickly and easily.

And now you can grab the names of your tracks PLUS Preserve The Track Order Now too. It's all yours when you use DAK's all new Auto-Naming, Track Order Preserving CD to MP3 & Wav CD Ripper.

Enjoy. . . Drew
 
 
Tutorial Review Please.
So, What do you think? Good? Bad? Was this tutorial Helpful? Too detailed? Not Detailed enough? What would you do differently?
What do you want to know? What subject would you like me to write a tutorial about?
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